A hundred metres into Arab Road, Dallas pulled over. Priest eased the Subaru to a halt twelve metres behind him. Most of the buildings lining the road were partially or completely collapsed. They watched Dallas get out of his car and stride towards a two-storey building ten metres ahead. It stood alone, with piles of rubble that were once its neighbours on either side. The paint was peeling and a sign above the battered metal door read, ‘WELCOME TO THE ZANZI BAR.’

  Bald checked his watch. They had arrived at the RV with fourteen minutes to spare before the meeting. He watched Dallas enter the Zanzi Bar. Then he turned to Priest. ‘Right. Let’s do him.’

  The two men debussed from the Subaru. Bald silently cursed Chance for assigning Priest to the op as they approached the bar. He was too big, too conspicuous, too quick to lick his partner’s boots. The Scot made a deal with himself: the first opportunity he got, he would implicate the guy and do whatever it took to get him off the team. He reasoned that he could do a better job flying solo on this op than with Priest around to fuck it up.

  As they entered the bar Bald felt the anger flush out of him. He slipped into training mode. His mind went cold, blocking out negative thoughts and focusing on the task at hand.

  Kill Dallas.

  Dispose of the body.

  Get on the team.

  Inside, the Zanzi Bar was a slum. The walls were bare concrete and the multi-coloured mosaic floor had a big crack running across it. Buckets were scattered around the bar, catching water leaking from dark bulges in the ceiling. A cockroach scuttled across the floor. Bob Marley drifted out of the speakers, singing about peace and love and all kinds of other shit that Bald didn’t believe in. A projector beamed a live football match onto a wall at the back of the room. Aston Villa versus Liverpool. Slow-motion replays showed a spotty-faced teenage striker with head-to-toe tattoos going down in the box like he’d just taken a shotgun blast to the face. Bald counted half a dozen punters scattered about the joint. Local faces for a strictly local hangout. They looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and hate and Bald had a sneak preview of what it felt like to be the one black guy at UKIP’s annual conference. He scanned the bar. Spotted Dallas at the back, heading towards the toilets.

  ‘Follow me,’ Bald told Priest.

  2048 hours.

  Twelve minutes.

  At the door of the toilets Bald said, ‘Stay here and keep watch. Anyone tries to take a leak, tell them the plumbing’s fucked.’

  Priest nodded. Bald swept past him and through the door, his heart thumping in the back of his throat. He instantly wrinkled his nose. Someone had dropped a turd bomb in one of the cubicles and the smell of it hung thick in the air. He looked for Dallas. The room was in keeping with the classy décor of the rest of the joint. Three cubicles on the right, two with the doors missing. On the adjoining wall, four filthy urinals, with a wide, frosted-glass window open up above. Cigarette butts and condoms discarded in them. Dallas stood at one of the urinals, shaking the last drops of piss from his cock. Hearing the door crash open, he glanced round. Saw Bald. Zipped himself up. Just a flicker of recognition sparked up in his eyes.

  ‘Jesus, John,’ he started. ‘Long time no see. What the fuck are you doing here, mate?’

  ‘Paying you a friendly visit.’

  There was just enough time for the guy’s expression to turn to fear before Bald launched himself at him. The ex-Para was backed against the urinal with nowhere to go. Bald slugged him in the guts. Dallas stumbled to the side, trying to evade another blow. The Scot grabbed him by the upper arms and threw him into the nearest cubicle. His blood was up now. He didn’t see Dallas as an old mucker, just an obstacle in the way of the op. Dallas screamed as he stumbled into the cubicle. Now Bald slammed his face into the dividing wall. He groaned, the impact knocking him off his feet. He shoved a hand against the wall to stop himself slipping to the piss-stained floor.

  ‘Christ, what the hell are you doing—?’

  Bald cut Dallas off with a vicious blow to the jaw, the guy’s head snapping backwards. He followed up with another punch to the stomach. Dallas made a rasping sound, bent double, his hands moving up to clutch his guts as he folded at the waist. His cheeks were shading red and his mouth formed an ‘O’, his eyes wide with disbelief. He looked like he was trying to shit out a pineapple.

  Dallas tried backing away from Bald but he was boxed in. Now Bald reached out and clamped a hand around the back of his head. The guy was too stunned by the first volley of blows to block the move. He made a feeble attempt to wrench his head free, yanking his neck back and forth. Bald slammed his head against the cubicle wall again. His shoulder muscles were pumping now, his biceps and triceps swelling with adrenalin and blood, allowing him to put some serious force into the thrust. There was a dense thud as Dallas connected head-first with the wall, followed by a short, sharp crack, like an axe chopping wood. He howled in agony. A spatter of blood marked the point of impact. Dallas pawed miserably at his face. His nose was bent out of shape and looked like a spoon right after Uri Geller had vigorously rubbed it.

  Bald was about to finish his good work when Priest charged into the room and shoved the Scot out of the way before he could block him off. He delivered a quick punch to Dallas’s ribs, then clasped a hand around the nape of his neck. Bald looked on as he hoisted the guy’s head six inches above the toilet bowl. Inside the bowl was a massive turd nestling among toilet paper. With a violent downward thrust, Priest slammed Dallas’s head against the rim of the bowl. His skull cracked against the porcelain with a satisfying dink that gave Bald an immense thrill. Groaning painfully, Dallas grasped the sides of the bowl and tried to steer his head away. He kicked wildly. Bald grabbed his legs.

  Now Priest lifted the lid off the cistern and smashed it down on Dallas’s head. Blood spattered the porcelain. The Scot heard the pleasing crack of bone, and saw a huge wound in the top of the guy’s skull, blood glistening in his hair. Then Priest just pulverized the guy. Even Bald was surprised by the savage show he was putting on as he battered Dallas’s head and face with the cistern lid. Blood everywhere. After a third blow Dallas went slack, then voided his bowels and bladder, piss flooding over the tiled floor. His neck muscles spasmed. A fourth blow did the trick and sent him over to the dark side.

  Priest kept hitting Dallas with the cistern lid, making a keening sound in his throat, even though the guy was dead. Bald had to haul his partner off him. The two of them took a step back, hunched in the cubicle doorway, snatching at their breath. Priest had absolutely leathered Dallas. There was nothing left of his face. His features had been caved in, his eyes and mouth and nose now a soup of bone and gristle. Bald turned to his partner in disbelief. Priest puffed out his chest with pride.

  ‘I did it, sir.’

  ‘You were supposed to guard the door.’

  ‘I thought you might need a hand.’

  ‘I had it under control.’

  Bald glanced at Dallas and exhaled heavily. He turned back to Priest and said, ‘You’re a fucking animal. We only needed to kill him. We didn’t need to turn his face into putty.’

  Priest looked upset.

  Bald shook his head. ‘We have to dispose of the body.’

  ‘What you might call a real-world problem, boss.’

  Bald stared at Priest for a long beat, saying nothing.

  Then he told him, ‘Get round to the back of the building. The other side of that frosted window over there. I’ll feed him through to you.’ He looked at his watch. 2055 hours. ‘Five minutes until Stegman shows. Get a move on, sunshine.’

  Priest raced off as fast as a guy his size could move. At the same time Bald slid his hands under Dallas’s armpits and fastened his hands arms across his chest. Then he lifted him to his limp feet. The guy weighed a ton. Dead people always did, in Bald’s experience. He dragged Dallas out of the cubicle and over to the urinals. Glimpsed his reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite the cubicles. He cut a faintly ridiculous figure. Looked like he was giving a dead guy the Heimlich manoeuvre. Priest called out to say he was outside. Sweat pouring down his back, Bald gave it one big effort and hefted Dallas up, then pushed him head-first through the window.

  ‘Bury him under some of that rubble,’ Bald said. He stood on tiptoe and could just see Priest gathering debris from the adjacent collapsed building and then piling it on top of Dallas. It would look just like the heaps of rubble and other shit all around the neighbourhood, and, with the smell of burning rubbish in the air, no one would notice the stench of a dead guy on their own doorstep, thought Bald.

  Then he raced over to the washbasin and sluiced the blood off his hands and forearms. 2058 hours. At the door he stopped and surveyed the room. Blood was splattered over the cubicle walls and floor. But it would have to do. There was no time left. But he took a few seconds to compose himself, then stepped out of the toilets.

  Outside the door, a man was waiting for him. He had a wiry build and slender shoulders, and his head was shaven. The guy wore cheap shades and a Barack Obama T-shirt that stretched down to his knees. He was so black he looked like a hole. Like a bottomless pit. He grunted at Bald and ripped off his shades, revealing a pair of eyes stark white against his skin, like golf balls that had landed in a tar pit.

  Obama grinned at Bald. ‘You looking for Harvey Stegman?’ He achieved the miraculous feat of making every word sound like a grunt.

  Bald mopped sweat from his brow and nodded. ‘Yeah. He sent for us. Jimmy Speed,’ he said, using the name of the guy he was impersonating. At that moment Priest appeared. ‘My mate, Liam Rees,’ Bald said.

  Obama eyed them both warily.

  ‘Master will see you now,’ he said.

  Eighteen

  2100 hours.

  Bald and Priest followed Obama towards the Zanzi Bar’s exit. The projector was now showing a local news channel instead of the Premier League match. A woman’s smiling, bright-eyed face filled the screen. Bald recognized her from the article in the Star about the pirate kidnapping. The victim ticked all the boxes necessary to warrant a lead story on the TV news. She was young, white, blonde, British. That would’ve been enough to get the news editors creaming their pants. Nobody cared when a teenage black kid disappeared. That wasn’t even news, thought Bald.

  Obama caught him looking at the TV and clicked his tongue.

  ‘So many go missing these days,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t sound too upset,’ Bald said.

  ‘And why should I be? These rich people come here looking for paradise while everyone else wallows in filth. They should stay at home, where it is safe and comfortable and there are no abductors.’

  ‘You obviously haven’t been to Brixton, mate.’

  Obama didn’t reply to that. He led them outside and towards a Land Rover parked across the street from the Subaru. Barefoot kids in Barcelona shirts swarmed around them, hawking cheap watches and bottles of water and knackered old mobile phones. Bald brushed the kids aside.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked Obama.

  Obama smiled. His eyes and teeth were like day-glo in the gritty darkness. ‘The Zanzi Bar is too open for master. The Americans wish to kill Pretorius and that means anyone who works for him is in danger too. So, the meeting is somewhere a little more secluded than here.’

  Bald and Priest looked at each other and shrugged. Then they clambered into the Land Rover. Obama drove them north-west, towards Kilindini Harbour. A hundred metres short of the harbour he turned down a side street and pulled up outside a Portuguese art-deco-style building the colour of wedding cake. He led Bald and Priest through a wrought-iron gate, into the building and up a broad flight of stairs cloaked in shadows. The African, who had an injured leg, limped along a short step ahead. The air was thick as a towel as they reached the first floor. A strong smell of marijuana wafted along the spacious landing. Obama knocked three times at the nearest door. The sound of a woman giggling came from inside the room.

  After a pause a voice shouted, ‘Enter!’

  Obama cracked open the door and ushered Bald and Priest inside. The apartment looked like something off MTV Cribs: white marbled floor, white walls, white sofas, white coffee table. Above, chandeliers glittered like oversized Swarovski earrings. The TV fixed to one wall was so big it probably straddled three different time zones. It was tuned in to some too-cool-for-school music station. A bunch of black women in leopard-print bikinis were shaking their booty at a five-foot-nothing guy with corn-rows and a baggy white T-shirt. The TV was in 3-D and to Bald the image looked kind of skewed. To the left of the TV/small nation there was a balcony overlooking the slums of Mombasa in what was either an unfortunate oversight on the part of the architect or a deliberate piece of crass class tourism. Two black women decked out in latex skirts, crop-tops and red platforms the colour of cheap lipstick reclined on one of the two sofas. Their hands were vigorously stroking the inner thighs of the guy stretched out in the middle. His legs were spread so far apart you could smuggle a freight train between them. His eyes were clamped shut as he sucked on a joint and groaned in ecstasy.

  ‘Master,’ Obama began, interrupting the guy’s pleasure. ‘The recruits are here.’

  Harvey Stegman opened his eyes and exhaled. The veins on his neck stuck out like hosepipes, his bronze skin was pulled tight across his face and he had a taut physique which suggested that his body fat was in the single digits. He wore a tan-coloured shirt that shrink-wrapped his muscles, and a pair of knee-length khakis.

  ‘You’re the blokes my mate Trent Drake sent up for the job?’ Stegman asked. He spoke in an Afrikaner accent that took Bald a few moments to decipher. Bald nodded as Stegman ran his eyes over him before turning to Priest. The guy said nothing. Just grunted as he looked them up and down, grinding his teeth so hard Bald could hear the enamel squeak.

  Then he burst into a full-blown laugh.

  ‘Bloody hell. Trent has done me up like a kipper this time. Sent me the fucking dregs, hasn’t he? You’re not a merc,’ he said to Bald. ‘You should be in a fucking care home.’

  The women laughed at that. Bald clenched his jaw. Then a question flashed in Stegman’s eyes. ‘There’s supposed to be one more lad meeting us today. Vincent Dallas. Where the fuck is he?’

  Priest and Bald swapped a nervous look. ‘No idea, mate,’ said Bald. ‘We haven’t seen him. Isn’t that right, Rees?’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Priest replied after a pause, like an actor suddenly remembering his lines.

  Stegman scratched his crotch. Thoughts whirring and clicking behind his eyes. ‘That’s weird. Vinnie is never late. Never.’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s not like Vinnie at all.’

  Bald flashed his palms at Stegman. ‘Wish I could help you, mate. But we’ve not seen anyone.’

  ‘If that is true, why was Mr Dallas’s car parked outside the Zanzi Bar?’

  The question came from Obama. Bald feigned a look of innocence. A tense silence played out in the room. Obama staring at Bald. Bald returning the stare with interest. Stegman rose to his feet and gave Obama a hearty slap on the back, breaking the ice. ‘You’ve already met my son.’

  Bald did a double-take. Reset his gaze on Stegman.

  ‘Son?’ he repeated.

  Stegman grinned. His lips spread apart like a pair of arse cheeks. ‘I rescued Eli during a coup in Mauritania a few years back. They still have slavery over there, you know? Darkies enslaving darkies. Mental. I took Eli under my wing. He’s like a son to me now. Isn’t that right, Eli?’

  Eli bowed his head humbly. ‘Yes, master . . . and you are like a father to me.’

  Stegman ruffled the guy’s hair and looked into his eyes. There was an affectionate look in his eyes that told Bald something else was going on here. Maybe the whole father–son thing was a euphemism, he thought. Maybe they had hooked up on Grindr, or whatever it was that gay people did these days.

  Stegman turned back to the two Brits. Mean eyes pinballing between them as he spoke. ‘Trent tells me you boys are ex-SBS.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Bald, remembering the cover story from the briefing pack Chance had given him. ‘Ten years in the Boat Service. We fought in the Afghan and Iraq. Completed tours of duty in DR Congo and Gabon too. We’ve worked as PMCs on the Circuit in Libya and Egypt.’

  Stegman pulled a face as he pointed at Priest. He continued addressing Bald. ‘You mean to tell me this fat fuck was in the SBS as well?’

  Priest swallowed. Bald answered for him. ‘Back in the day Liam here was built like a Calvin Klein underwear model. Since we’ve been out of the Service he’s put on a few pounds.’

  ‘A few pounds?’ Stegman raised his eyebrow so high it almost hit the ceiling. ‘Stick this fella in a boat and it’d sink faster than shares in a Greek bank.’

  Bald shrugged and made a what-can-you-do? gesture with his hands. Stegman ground his teeth and stroked his jaw as he thought some more. Finally he said to Priest, ‘Well, my boy, Trent recommended you. Which means you’re both kosher. But I need to know one thing before I officially welcome you on board. What do the two of you know about training up a militia?’

  Bald grinned. British Special Forces were renowned throughout the intelligence and SF communities worldwide for their ability to train up foreign paramilitary and elite units. The Regiment were the kings of this particular line of work and the SBS also dabbled it in from time to time. This was going to be too easy.

  ‘We’ve trained plenty of lads down the years. We’re qualified in weapon handling, first aid and tactical engagement. Give me the men for a month and I can teach them the basics of fire-and-manoeuvre and immediate action. By the time I’m done with them they’ll be sharper than any national army unit in Africa.’